NM’s Attorney General’s Horse Case is Slow Off The Line

It looks like NM Atty Gen Gary King’s lawsuit will fail to stop New Mexico’s Valley Meat Co. plant from slaughtering horses come January 1st. Mid-January is long time to wait for the House and Senate’s agriculture appropriations bills to stop this insanity. ~ HfH

A year-end attempt by New Mexico Attorney General Gary King to prevent a Roswell slaughterhouse from processing USDA-inspected horsemeat for export has apparently failed. It means a New Mexico business could be still be slaughtering horses as early as Jan. 1.

King, who is also running for Governor, held a Dec. 19 news conference to announce he was seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent Valley Meat Co. in Roswell “from killing and butchering horses for food.” But a week later, on Dec. 26, New Mexico court records show the only real action that has occurred in the case is to assign it to a different judge.

King filed the 25-page civil lawsuit on behalf of the State of New Mexico with the First Judicial District in Santa Fe, where it was assigned to Judge Raymond Z. Ortiz. A preemptory challenge was filed against Ortiz and he was officially removed from the case on Dec. 23, replaced by the First District’s newly named family law judge, Matthew Wilson.

Wilson, 44, was just named to the state bench in October by Gov. Susana Martinez. The Republican governor named the former domestic relations hearings officer to the bench primarily to handle the district’s family law docket.

Since his appointment, however, other civil cases outside the family law docket have been assigned to his court. Wilson is a registered Democrat. His schedule for the rest of the year shows only some domestic violence and family law cases.

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